Fifteen years ago, as highly successful industrialists our family was very comfortable and we had almost everything we desired. We had it all.
It was after lunch one day that my brother Parvinder and I, decided to go for a walk around the neighbourhood. Dressed too casually in shorts, T shirt and sandals we walked around for a while before we came to a bungalow complex where a friend lived. We were thirsty and decided to go to his home and get something to drink.
Shockingly the security watchman refused to let us enter the complex. We initially tried reasoning with the rigid oaf, then demanding, and finally threatening him that he would lose his job. All to no avail, he was one stubborn man.
Not being able to quench our thirst was one matter but when the watchman asked, "Who the hell are you? I don't know you." our egos really took a beating.
This very same watchman would leap into action to fling open the gates of the complex whenever we drove into the complex in our Mercedes, now refused to let us enter. What was wrong with this man? I was upset and getting angrier by the minute.
My philosophical and logical brother said, "Hey! he does not recognize us, he recognizes only our cars. Since we are now on foot the man is acting silly. Let's forget this rude man and your friend, let's just go home, we will be there in ten minutes"
Blinded by my ego and inflated impressions about myself, I learnt nothing from that experience until almost a decade later. In the intervening years our industries grew from strength to strength only to unfortunately collapse during the next recession.
With the downfall was lost most of our material possessions and now we stood as individuals, laid bare without those superficial layers of wealth with which we adorned ourselves. It was a time of reckoning.
The world had nothing to offer to heal my spirit and my thoughts turned to God and I began to introspect. I found incredible courage in prayer and meditation, and thanked my elders for having taught me how to reach out to God.
I finally realised that in essence, there was this little soul of mine and that great soul of our Creator and nothing else that really mattered. With this realisation came a liberation of the being and I was born anew.
Irrelevant was my rank or the glittering riches and the props I used to define myself. I began to look for meaning in my existence and finally discovered that living each moment that I am nothing and a nobody except what my Creator wishes me to be.
The higher we rise materially the more pompous we become with an increasing fragile ego. The more we progress spiritually the more humble we become as the ego dissolves, and the stronger our being becomes.
Only those that have felt pain and sorrow can truly appreciate joy. Only when one has faced destruction that we can begin to sense the meaning of creation.
Keep me in palaces or in a hutment, rich or poor, alone or with dear ones, if I accept my destiny and do my sincere best the joy will always be there.
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Albert Einstein once said, "Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value."
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